#60: How to Lose 10 lbs by Summer - My 6-point formula for fat loss
[00:00:00] Welcome to 40 Plus Fitness for Women. I'm Lynn, your host, and I'm a certified menopause fitness coach helping women who are in perimenopause and beyond to revamp their fitness, to align with their changing bodies.
And today we are going to talk about what I would do now if I wanted to get in shape for summer, and I put like air quotes around the in shape for summer, and I will freely admit that I am choosing this topic. Because I'm sure it is on so many people's minds. I mean, I go to my gym now and it is really filled and I am up North where there is still snow on the ground.
, people are still walking around in down jackets and hats. So I can imagine that [00:01:00] if you're living further South, this is really becoming. Very relevant for you already at this point, even though, well, okay, by the time this airs, it'll be just the very beginning of April. But, uh, anyway, so what would you do in order to get in shape?
What would I suggest you do in order to get in shape for summer? Now, a lot of times people at this time of year, they'll look at themselves and they think, Oh my goodness, I could stand to use a few, lose a few pounds. So I'm going to go running. And let me tell you, those people are out there on the track.
The gym that I go to, actually, my gym has two weight rooms, but one of the weight rooms has a track. Around it. And I see that that truck is getting a lot of use now, particularly by people who look like they haven't been running very much lately. So they're not the runners, but they're the people who are trying to get in shape for summer.
And I'm going to tell you that that is not true. maybe the [00:02:00] place that I would start when we are thinking about getting in shape. Now, a few weeks back, actually, it was podcast 45. So this is podcast 60. So quite a few weeks back, I, uh, released a podcast where I talked about that getting in shape for summer starts.
Now, i. e. back then in December. And there I really described my two phased approach for getting in shape. So that is a podcast that I would recommend that you listen to if you haven't heard it yet. And if you've been listening to the podcast at all, you know that my approach is really to go after lifestyle changes, right?
Not these kind of quick fixes, because it's The quick fixes tend to also quickly break and they lead to [00:03:00] people ending up on this kind of diet rollercoaster where they're gaining 10 pounds, losing 10 pounds, gaining 10 pounds, losing 10 pounds. Whereas if you do a lifestyle change, really learn new habits that you can sustain all through the year, through the decades and all that, you end up with a change.
That's like becomes your new normal, right? Instead of changing to a skinnier version of you for a little while, and then going back to your normal of being heavier or more out of shape. So I am much more of an advocate of finding your new normal in achievable, manageable And also where it doesn't take a ton of time and effort, right?
Really [00:04:00] optimizing and making it as easy as possible, because I know that life is so busy. It is a constant struggle to find the time to do the things that you need to do. Let alone the things that you want to do, which is finding the time for yourself and for self care. So we need to really optimize.
now, almost always. When you are trying to get in shape, women mean that they want to lose a little bit of fat. And in order to lose fat or weight, you do need to be in a calorie deficit. Now calorie deficit can be created in a few different ways, some better, some worse ways, but what it basically means is you're not feeding your body enough calories so that it can do the things that you need it to do.
So it would be like going on a trip with your car, but not giving it enough gas to get [00:05:00] to the destination. Now, your car will simply pull over on the side of the road and die, right? It'll just stop, but your body is not going to do that. Your body is going to look for fuel sources on board. In other words, in your body, it is going to start using your fat stores and your muscle in order to make up for that calorie deficit.
And if you've been listening to this podcast at all, you know how precious muscle is. It is so very important for Us to be able to live our best lives, do the things that we want to be able to do, play with our grandchildren, travel, carry that suitcase, do the gardening, you know, carry those big bags of dirt, get up the stairs, get off the toilet, all those things.
Our muscles are critically important for us to be able to live our [00:06:00] long independent lives. and When you diet without weight training, you are sacrificing some of your muscle. In fact, it's estimated that 25 to 30 percent of the weight that you lose when you're in a diet is going to come from muscle. So if you're losing 10 pounds, that'll be two and a half to three pounds of muscle that you're losing.
And that means that you are weaker when you're done with the diet, right? And what you want to be losing is the fat. The way that you signal to your body that you want it to get rid of the fat and keep the muscle is through weight training. And that's it. That's not just like those little car, you know, cardio with weights classes that they have at the gym, but real strength training.
So please, if you take nothing away from this [00:07:00] episode, please do remember that when you go on a diet, make sure that you continue to lift weights. And if you aren't lifting weights yet, I do have my learn to lift programs. Super easy to get started. I'm not kidding. So easy. I've had so many women write to me and say, Oh my God, you know, bought it.
And I'm already lifting like the same day, the next day, and there have been really, really happy. So that is an easy way to get started with the weight training, but don't skip that because you need to hold on to your muscle.
And a quick reminder that if you are one of those people that's been on the diet roller coaster, so you've been losing 10 pounds, and then you gain it back, then you lose it again, and you gain it back, and you're kind of okay with that, right, that Yeah, you've got two sets of clothes.
You got your summer clothes, your winter clothes, summer clothes, winter clothes, or however you manage that rollercoaster thing. Remember that it is not [00:08:00] the same 10 pounds that you're losing and gaining over and over again. You may hear that, Oh, I'm gaining and losing that same 10 pounds. It's not the same 10 pounds because when you lose the 10 pounds, you're losing You know, maybe seven pounds of fat and three pounds of muscle.
And when you're gaining the 10 pounds, it is almost exclusively fat. So as you go through that rollercoaster cycle, you're actually really doing awful things to your body composition. You are replacing your muscle with fat. So it is no wonder that you are weaker and not looking the way that you want to look over time.
So weight room, weight room, weight room. Okay, good. So lecture over and let's get to the topic. That's sorry, I just can't like ethically talk about dieting for summer without reminding you of some of these really important points.
I have to also tell a very horrifying story [00:09:00] that I heard from one of my clients who has, who is not at all overweight. She does not need to be losing weight. And yet. Her doctor, without her saying anything and without having any kind of health reason for doing this, her doctor suggested to her that does she want to take some of these weight loss injection drugs?
I mean, my jaw dropped. I cannot believe that a doctor would suggest such a thing. Just like, Hey, you know, why don't we just dye your eyebrows? Why don't we just give you weight loss injections, you know, just kind of like it's nothing when yeah. Anyhow. Remember. That what those weight loss injections are doing is they are decreasing your appetite.[00:10:00]
So they're just making it easier for you to be in that calorie deficit and you're still putting your body in that kind of situation where you haven't put enough gas in the tank. So it's got to take fuel from somewhere else. And just the same as any other form of dieting. It is going to take that fuel from both your muscles and from your fat stores.
So you need to be signaling to your body that, Hey, we want to be losing the fat, not the muscle. So all of these things that when I talk about dieting, it also applies to people who are getting the diet injections or the weight loss injections.
So at this time of year, you see a lot of these 12 week weight loss. Programs that you can buy online. And I've been looking at a lot of them cause I am, you know, because of my profession here, curious about what other trainers are really talking about [00:11:00] when they are doing these programs and what it pretty much boils down to is this, is that they often give you, um, a workout program.
And often it is a lot of working out. Luckily, a lot of them do have strength training in them and bravo that they are including the strength training in there because it, like said, you want to be losing the fat, not the muscle. So they include strength training, but then they also often include cardio and.
The workout portion of that could be something that takes, you know, six hours plus per week. So it's a pretty significant time commitment. And then a lot of them also give you an exact like here is what you need to eat and you get your recipes handed to you and you need to eat exactly what those say.
So what they're doing is they [00:12:00] are in advance figuring out like how many calories are in those recipes and then of course controlling what calories you eat. And. You know, these may be very effective in getting your weight off, and I think they probably are. But the thing that concerns me is that are you learning things and building habits that allow you to keep the weight off?
Because you don't want to be in this cycle of again, You know, going through this 12 week, ah, this is all I can do. And my, the whole rest of my life is kind of forgotten about or put on hold while I focus on this one thing. And then when it's over, you just go back to normal life and. regain the weight and, you know, like that, or do you want to make changes and learn things [00:13:00] where you can, you know, go through that 12 week experience and then continue.
To implement those things that you've learned long term to keep the weight off and to continue to improve your body composition and your health and your strength and your bone density and all the things that like doing a lifestyle change enables you to do. So it's a, it's a different mindset, right? 12 weeks of doing something that's.
different from your life versus 12 weeks of learning how to live your life differently. So you could think about which kind of investment you want to make.
So there was my preamble getting longer and longer. But now if we go into the topic of what I would suggest you do, if you want to Let's say 10 pounds, because usually people talk about the nice 10 pounds [00:14:00] before summer. So in the next 12 weeks, and by the way, I think that is a very reasonable amount of weight to lose in that it's about one pound per week, maybe a little bit less.
It won't necessarily come off at that rate of one pound per week, exactly. But that is It's fairly sustainable for that amount of time, of course, depending a little bit on what your starting point is. If you're terribly slender already, then it is always going to be harder to lose, more fat. And Quite honestly, you might ask yourself like, why, why would you need to, uh, I know I'm kind of looking at myself in the mirror right now, because on the one hand, because I am, , a fitness coach and I should be kind of showing an example and, you know, the camera adds 10 pounds and, you know, I should [00:15:00] look super thin.
I am feeling a little bit of pressure because of my work to slim down even a little bit more for summer. I feel like right now I am so happy with where I am. I feel good in my body. I don't have to think much about what I eat. I can go out to dinner. I can party with my friends. I'm in a really good place.
My body is happy here and I'm happy here and, and the lifestyle works for me. Yes, I could lose a little bit more weight, but I'm kind of debating like, is that a bad example to set or should I just be like, Hey, I'm happy with how I am anyway. But if I were going to now try to lose some weight, there are.
Um, six things that you need to take into account. And these are all very simple. And the thing is that a lot, this is like a simple, simple list. And then the devil is in the details of how do you actually [00:16:00] implement it into your life?
And that's where a lot of people struggle. So number one is being in a calorie deficit. Two is focusing on eating protein and my suggested aim is one gram per pound of body weight., I'll explain these a little bit more after I've done it, told the list three, you would lift weights Four walk 8, 000 to 10, 000 steps a day.
And really that's about movement more than exercise. Five, sleep seven to nine hours a night. And the sixth is you gotta do it every day. There's like no exceptions. You just need to do this consistently. Religiously every day in order to get the result in the 10 to 12 weeks. So let's go into [00:17:00] each of these in a little bit more depth.
So about the calorie deficit and the eating, you want to be in a reasonable calorie deficit. So not something that's so crazy that if you're getting your period still, you would stop getting your periods or that you're, you know, your bodily functions sort of shut down. You want to be in as small a calorie deficit as you can be in and still get results.
Honestly, it's just going to make the 12 weeks a lot easier. 12 weeks may sound short, it is a hell of a long time when you're not eating and you're feeling like crap, you're tired, you're sleeping poorly, your workouts are hard, your brain isn't working, all those things. So, but to figure out what your calorie deficit should be, you need to kind of know what is your maintenance calories.
So how many calories can you eat and stay at the weight that you're at. And I think one of the biggest challenges [00:18:00] here is that most women think they're eating less than what they're eating. They think that, Hey, I'm actually eating 1500 calories when really they're probably eating 2200, but they're not counting that.
You know, scoop of peanut butter that they had when they were making their kids, the peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, or that cookie that they grabbed, um, from the coffee room when they grab their cup of coffee or the fact that, Oh, twice this week, they actually had to grab lunch on the go. And. Lunches on the go can often be real calorie bombs.
So you really need to be really strictly following every little thing that goes into your mouth, including that glass of wine before bed or whatever, whatever other things that you do so that you get an idea of what your maintenance calories are, and then subtract. Maybe 400, maybe 500 calories [00:19:00] from that to end up with your, , calorie deficit.
So for me, my maintenance calories, when I went on my calorie deficit last summer, was about 2, 200 calories, my maintenance. So my deficit was 1, 700 calories. A day. And that probably sounds like a lot of calories to a lot of women out there who are thinking that they're eating 1500 calories, but I bet you actually are not eating just 1500 calories.
So. You need to figure out your maintenance first. All right. Then there's the protein piece and the protein is going to be huge in supporting you in this weight loss, because A. Protein is going to help your body to retain that muscle that we talked about earlier that we do not want to be losing. We want to lose the fat.
And the second thing, the protein is going to do is it is going to make you feel more satiated. [00:20:00] You are going to be able to eat. less and not feel so hungry. In fact, when I started my diet, I was really, really surprised that I was not hungry at all. Um, I actually have a few podcast episodes that I did last year that were about my fat loss journey, and I'll link them in the show notes because I really go into a lot of depth on what I did and, and how it went.
So if you want to go through those, then, you know, Happy to have you do that, but it's interesting when you start focusing on the protein, uh, it really makes a difference. This is something that so many of my clients have commented on. And, and one client just told me that when she started eating more protein, she immediately actually lost some weight because she was just eating less because she wasn't hungry.
She, her goal is not at all weight loss. She is Quite slender already, but [00:21:00] now she almost needs to maybe watch that she's eating enough calories because the protein is so satiating for her.
Then the third thing on the list was that you need to keep lifting weights while you're in the calorie deficit. And this is really to signal to your body that you need those muscles. So the weight training needs to be fairly intense.
So, so you get that signal across to your body. The last thing you want is to be just lifting little weights that feel like nothing. Maybe you have the burn and whatever, but you need to be lifting with a fair amount of intensity. And I'll tell you, this is not easy when you're in a calorie deficit.
Because a calorie deficit will make you tired. You don't have the energy to train. I remember it was really a lot, took a lot of willpower, a lot of [00:22:00] discipline to show up for my training sessions when I was in my calorie deficit because I wasn't making progress. I was kind of standing still, even though when I did my sets, I was getting close to failure or to failure.
I wasn't really getting stronger or building muscle along the way, because my body was It just didn't have the energy because of being in the deficit. So you need to be training, even if it sucks. You need to be training.
Okay. Number four was walking 8, 000 to 10, 000 steps a day. And here I would say, this is really about general movement.
And the problem with being in a calorie deficit, I've talked about this before, is that you That your body does all kinds of things to try to get you to conserve energy when it's in a calorie deficit. That makes a lot of sense, right? [00:23:00] It knows that, Hey, I don't have enough fuel on board in order to do the things that I need to do.
So I'm going to use less fuel. And you will not move. You won't wave your arms when you're speaking. You will not walk across the room. You will not want to stand at your standing desk. Oh, I remember it was so hard to get out my walk pad. It was really, it felt like a Herculean task sometimes to just. Be like, okay, I'm going to, I'm going to now do it.
I'm going to do it. I'm going to do it because you just, your body has such a strong drive to say, conserve energy. So you need to make sure you're continuing to move because actually that non exercise activity that you do every day burns more calories than that trip to the gym for that cardio session that you'll do tonight.
So if you're Sitting still all day, you are [00:24:00] really taking yourself out of the calorie deficit without, you know, realizing it. So this is, this is a super duper important one. Make sure you're moving pace when you're doing, um, your social media, scrolling, if you're watching TV, whatever, wherever you can get some more motion.
So you're just using more calories and the best way to track it is by looking at your steps. Okay, number five is sleep. So sleeping seven to nine hours a night. And this is one I would definitely not skip either. I think all of these are super critical. So the sleep is super duper important because When you don't have the sleep, your hunger and satiety cues go out of whack and you will crave food even more.
You're going to start to feel hungry at some point in your [00:25:00] diet and you're limiting yourself. So your brain may be thinking, Oh my God, I can't have food. So I want food. I want food. I want food. And if you're not sleeping enough, if you're tired, your body will want even more food. I know for me, it's like, if I've had a poorly slept night and I don't even need to be on a calorie deficit for this to happen, I am rating my kids candy because I just want sugar and I'm like caffeine and sugar carbs all day long.
Not that there's anything wrong with carbs. It's just that. It's not something I normally want to eat so much of, but I notice that it's just more calories into my body when I'm tired. So sleep, please prioritize your sleep during those weeks that you're in your calorie deficit. It'll also make your movement, your daily movement easier.
So these all kind of play on each other, right? And then literally you do [00:26:00] that for 10 to 12 weeks.
So it sounds pretty simple, actually, those, those six things, but I'll tell you, it can be really, really challenging to actually set those things up. But if you do it. The things you will learn are really, really going to help you to maintain that fat loss going forward. So if you get in the habit. of moving more and you continue that habit after your diet is over, you're going to be able to maintain that lower weight much, much more easily.
Same thing. If you get in the habit of prioritizing sleep, it is going to make everything easier as well. Maintaining the high level of protein in your diet is going to mean that you're going to feel more satiated and not [00:27:00] overeat as easily. Right? So you see, these are all super important things to learn.
And I think there is some value to your actually tracking your food yourself and trying to figure out things that you normally eat or tweak things that you normally eat. And of course you can take some recipes from other places as, as like new ways to do things and incorporate them into your normal routines rather than.
Picking, you know, taking some foods that I'm going to eat these for 12 weeks. I hate them. I never want to see them again after these 12 weeks. It'd be much better if you can modify your normal daily routines and your normal weekly eating habits so that When you're done with the 12 weeks, you understand that, Hey, if I want to get in that much protein, [00:28:00] I need to like have about this much chicken, you know, in my meal.
And you start to think in a different way about your food. You start to think protein first. Hey, what are we going to have for dinner Tuesday? Okay. We're going to have chicken. Great. We're going to have chicken. And what are we going to have with it? Well, let's have some veggies with it. What's a good veggie?
Well, maybe a sweet potato with it because sweet potato is filling. It's very nutritious. It tastes great. Kids love it. You know, easy to make all the things and, and you keep those in your diet going forward. So those were the things that I would do. And, oh my God, there's so much more detail around that.
If you feel like you want to do this kind of 12 week. diet slash, you know, lifestyle transformation. I would be happy to help you.
This is really kind of my zone of genius is trying [00:29:00] to figure out how to make things fit into a busy, busy schedule and really simplify things for you. So that's what I enjoy doing. And I'm good at doing, and I would love to help you with it. And. If not great, but remember the weight training and if you need help getting started, I've got the learn to lift self study courses where I am there also helping in the Facebook group.
So if you have any questions, you always have my support and yeah. Let me know if there is some of the details of this that you would like to hear more about because I'm planning my next episodes and I would be happy to dig into one of these areas in even more depth to help you out. Alright, and for this week, that's it.
And wishing you lots of sunshine wherever you are, [00:30:00] and a great week ahead. Happy training.